Sports Editor Adele Norris reports on a week of ups and downs in women’s sport
CRICKET
Australia win a third straight Women’s World Twenty20 final and Edwards compliments ‘sports geek’ team mate Shubsole attitude to the game.
The side triumphed by six wickets with 29 balls to spare in Dhaka.
Ahead of the match Charlotte Edwards said: ‘Obviously we want to go better this time than we did in Sri Lanka but we’re not focusing too much on revenge.
‘It’s about us putting in a really big performance tomorrow to hopefully win this trophy, which would mean a lot to us as a group of players.
‘We know we’re two evenly matched teams and who deals (best) with the big occasion tomorrow is going to come out winners.’
She said they’re competing in different conditions to the Ashes Series which England won a few months ago.
Meg Lanning won the toss, and like Charlotte Edwards named an unchanged side.
The Ashes holders were limited to 105 for eight.
Player of the match was Sarah Coyte who shone with 3-16.
Seamers Rene Farrell and Ellyse Perry shared four scalps.
Coyte crucially ousted Edwards and Sarah Taylor.
Heather Knight top-scored with 29.
England did not hit a six and Australia cleared the rope four times in coasting to victory.
Anya Shrubsole landed a 13th scalp to end Jess Jonassen’s brisk cameo.
Lanning was the competition’s top run-scorer. She took center stage with a series of boundaries, including two straight sixes, in her 44.
She was one of two wickets for Natalie Sciver on the brink of victory, but Perry finished reaching 31 not out.
Edwards commented on Shubsole’s strong attitude: ‘For someone so young she’s got a fantastic cricket brain.’
‘We spend a lot of time together talking cricket – she’s a sports geek!’
‘She loves her cricket and it’s been great to have her on the pitch for a period of time. She’s had problems with injuries in the past but I think over the past year she’s played some of her best cricket.
‘She’s going to have a huge future ahead of her. It’s mainly about her cricket awareness; she knows what to do, when to do it and her skills back up that.’
RACING
Katie Walsh was given late chance to ride in 2014 Grand National at Aintree.
The 29-year-old is the most successful female jockey in Grand National history.
She came third on Seabass two years ago.
On Saturday she was given the late chance to race again, replacing Mikey Fogarty on Vesper Bell, an outsider.
She was the only woman jockey to race.
Vesper Bell, trained by Willie Mullins, was around a 66-1 shot on Saturday before news that Walsh had been named as a replacement for Fogarty, who suffered a back injury in a fall at the Merseyside track on Friday.
Pineau de Re ridden by Leighton Aspell won this years race.
After the race Katie tweeted: ‘Delighted with vesper bell today great to get round really enjoyed it. Maybe next year.’
TRIATHLON
Jodie Stimpson made winning start to World Triathlon Series with victory in Auckland.
Stimpson finished just ahead of Germany’s Anne Haug.
‘That is definitely one of the toughest courses, that’s what the Kiwis are known for, they are awesome riders and it was great to be in a breakaway with those girls,’ said Stimpson.
‘I wish Non (Stanford – out through injury) could have been here, I hope she gets back quickly and joins us on the start line, but I’m chuffed with today, I couldn’t be happier.’
British Triathlon performance director Brendan Purcell was delighted with the medal return from the opening race of the season.
He said: ‘It’s a promising start to the season. The seniors have picked up where the left off at the end of last season, and I’m unbelievably happy to see Helen Jenkins finish on the podium.
‘What we’re really happy about is these younger athletes coming through and putting up a performance. It was a tough field and they were right up there.’
The next round of the series takes place in Cape Town, South Africa later this month, with Alistair Brownlee among those lining up.”
Helen Jenkins: ‘Retirement came into my head but a small part of you won’t let you give up.’
The 30-year-old returned to Triathlon finishing third behind Stimpson.
She told Team GB she has considerable pedigree in the sport of triathlon, winning the world title in 2008 and 2011 as well as finishing fifth at London 2012.
However her London Olympics could have been so much more if her build-up had not been hampered by a knee injury.
After the Games Jenkins was diagnosed with a compressed disc in her back which forced her to miss the 2013 season.
She finished fourth in the New Plymouth World Cup last month.
‘Retirement came into my head but a small part of you won’t let you give up,’ said Jenkins.
‘It would have been good to have that diagnosis pre-Olympics because we could have numbed the pain for the Games and then got it sorted out straight away.
‘Coming fifth at the Games took a lot for me, mentally. If the crowd weren’t there, I would have come 25th. Looking back now, I’m proud of what I did.
‘I really enjoyed the race [in New Zealand last month] and there’s relief that the first hurdle is out of the way.
‘I wasn’t sure what to expect and that was half of the nerves. I just felt rusty.
‘For the last few years, every race I’ve gone into I was aiming for the win. It’s very different to go in thinking ‘let’s just see what happens’.’
SKIING
Chemmy Alcott ends career with hat-trick of the titles at the British Championships in Meribel.
The four-time Olympian announced her retirement earlier this month.
She followed up on her victories in the Super G and downhill with a commanding win in the women’s super combined.
Chemmy finished nearly two seconds ahead of nearest rival Cara Brown while Alice Macaulay claimed the first senior medal of her career.
‘This has been my best ever British Championships. I just had fun out there today and totally took the pressure off myself. It was a bonus to win,’ said Alcott.
‘When I was in the start date I thought ‘this is the last time I will be in this position’ and I had to fight back some tears.
‘But then as I started skiing I really enjoyed it and seeing all the people I care about in the finish area was really special.’
SNOWBOARDING
Jenny Jones finished joint-third in her first event since claiming Olympic snowboard slopestyle bronze at Sochi 2014.
The 33-year-old won Britain’s first ever medal on snow in Russia last month with bronze behind gold medallist Jamie Anderson and silver medallist Enni Rukajarvi.
Now, in Livigno in Italy, she came third in the big air as part of the Nine Queens competition. 
The position is shared with Isabel Derungs of Switzerland.
Elena Konz, also Swiss, took first and Jessika Jenson of the USA second.
WRESTLING
Olympic wrestler Olga Butkevych took European wrestling bronze in Finland.
Butkevych became the first British woman to win a World Championship wrestling medal in 2012.
This week she won her opening -60kg fight and defeating Romanian Georgiana Filip.
But a defeat to Turkey’s Hafize Sahin put her into the repechage and she won through to beat Belarusian Nadzeya Mikhalkova inside 18 seconds securing a podium place.
At this summer’s Commonwealth Games her preferred weight category isn’t on the schedule but she will target the -58kg or -63kg divisions.
WINDSURFING
World windsurfing number one Bryony Shaw battles at sailing’s ISAF World Cup in Majorca.
The Olympic bronze medallist of 2008 is third in her fleet but admitted she was lucky to come through unscathed as the regatta’s previous light winds, were replaced by gusty conditions and a serious swell.
‘It was a really squally day – the wind kept flicking around all over the place,’ said Shaw.
‘We had three planing races and the last one was really windy, but I managed to survive. I think I got a couple of counters today and one that was a bit of a higher score unfortunately, but it was a relatively solid day.
‘The regatta so far has been a real mixed bag. It’s been light winds to start with and then had a day off yesterday where the wind just didn’t come through at all for us, so it’s been nice to have had some wind today and it’s been nice to have a mixed week with different kinds of conditions.
‘I’ve been trying to keep my consistency, will try and get some more top threes and see how we go.”
Elsewhere, Charlotte Dobson and Sophie Ainsworth sit third in the women’s 49erFX class.
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